‘Criminal’ Bonner Meets ‘Old Friend’ Premier Craxi : Bonner Meets Craxi, Says ‘I Have Become a Criminal’

Yelena Bonner, advised to delay eye treatment in Italy until after expected heart surgery in the United States, called today on Italian Premier Bettino Craxi, saying the only thing that had changed in the 10 years since they first met was that “he has become a prime minister and I have become a criminal.”

Bonner’s 35-minute meeting with Craxi was her first with a political figure since she arrived in Italy on Monday after Soviet authorities allowed her to travel abroad for medical care.

Bonner, wife of dissident Soviet physicist Andrei D. Sakharov, told reporters after the meeting that she had first met Craxi, then a rising star of the Italian Socialist Party, 10 years ago in Milan during an earlier trip to Italy for eye treatment.

“Ten years ago we had friendly relations, and this is a continuation of these relations,” she said. “The only thing that has changed since then is that he has become a prime minister and I have become a criminal.”

Bonner, 62, was sentenced in August, 1984, to five years internal exile on charges of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.

Italian officials said Craxi had voiced an interest through private channels in seeing Bonner. They described the meeting as private.

Bonner, who was driven to Craxi’s office in Rome directly from Florence after seeing an eye specialist Wednesday in the central Italian town of Siena, said she told Craxi of her health problems and those of her husband.

The Siena specialist, Renato Frezzotti, reported today that Bonner may need surgery for a cataract on her left eye, but said it is not “of particular urgency.” He also said heart treatment is “indispensable after the heart attack she suffered two years ago.”

The ophthalmologist suggested that she see him again on her way home from the United States. She is expected to leave for Boston on Saturday.

He also said he believes that she will seek an extension of her three-month stay in the West so she can undergo the cataract operation, adding that he thinks her eye condition cannot be corrected before her three-month visa expires.

Bonner also has glaucoma.